Posted
by
CowboyNeal
on Saturday March 26, 2005 @10:05AM
from the part-of-the-machine dept.

lildogie writes "Two researchers, from the Florida Institute of Technology and Boston-based Security Innovation Inc., 'surprised the audience at a computer-security convention last month with their finding that a version of Microsoft Windows was more secure than a competing Linux operating system' according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 'This week, the researchers released their finished report, and it included another surprise: Microsoft was funding the project all along.' When will they ever learn?"

Since I work with a security company, methodologies used says that a security company should not take any sides. But since this is Microsoft they should have made their reseach with a tripple verification with some company like IBM, CGI and [insert security company here].

Test #1
Intruders are capable of taking control over the computer.
Results:
Linux: The system was finally hacked (after leaving the root/administrative account w/o a password, which seems fair to windows)
Windows: The system crashed... nobody was able to take control!
Analysis and conclusions: Windows is much better!

Unfortunately, there are enough middle/upper management people who don't look into matters that closely and are simply "swayed" by knowing that M$ has market dominance -- and just tell themselves that "M$ wouldn't have it if their products sucked so badly, now would they?".

As long as there is enough ignorance or even indifference on (non-technical) management levels, M$ *will* see benefits from each time they're doing that.

(Besides, there is also the issue that you can't really go on to sue them for bad security if so many security companies openly tell of Microsoft's great security and the lack of security in competing OS's.).

The fact is, M$ OS's aren't "safe", and neither is a run-of-the-mill linux installation. Both need updates and security-conscious people administrating them to keep them shut. I've had people break into my (linux) servers once or twice , and managed to evict the attackers both times and plugged the holes they used that I had been unaware of before - but by now there are so many software packages that it's hard to keep track of security issues in all of them.

But, yes, despite those experiences, I'd still run a linux box over a windows box any day, because I think that in general my linux box is safer.

I certainly don't mean to let MSFT off the hookfor such brazen (and repeatedly brazen) self-promotion. MSFT is a convicted (but yet to trulybe punished) monopolist corporation that cannotbe trusted to build a secure OS or Apps Suite,let alone to "play fairly" in the marketplace.

But, hey folks, the 800 pound gorilla from Redmondis not alone in these tactics. The pharmacuticalindustry pulls the same kinds of tactics when itcomes to testing (and promoting) their drugs, andthey have (apparently) far more pull

But, hey folks, the 800 pound gorilla from Redmond
is not alone in these tactics. The pharmacutical
industry pulls the same kinds of tactics when it
comes to testing (and promoting) their drugs, and
they have (apparently) far more pull with the
government than MSFT does.

So this it the *everybody else does it* defense? Unless the appeal succeeds, Bernie Ebbers is going to jail, and Bill should be his cellmate. Microsoft is a convicted abusive monopolist and is held to higher standards than normal compa

Suppose two products competing products have 20 points of difference between them. Say 10 of them favour your product A, and the other 10 favour competing product B. On balance, the products are as good as each other. Here's how to get an "independant" report that you are financing to say that your product is better:

You instruct them to ask the questions that reveal the 10 features that favour your product A.

That's it. Simple as that. No lying required. This is the reason why you don't even bother to read a report that is financed by one of the product companies.

Now, the reasons why Security Innovation have chosen the two measures that you mention is quite obvious. It favours secret development over open development. Yet these factors do not have a direct relationship to how secure an operating system is. They are metrics that are at least one step removed. A direct metric would be for example, looking how often real systems are successfully attacked.

People will always read what's put in front of them without checking sources, too. That fact is what Microsoft is after.

Some of us may care because we make our living as software developers, resellers, et al. We know how much competing with a giant means to our personal bottom line. We care passionately about F/OSS because it's our livelyhood. (Some may care passionately against F/OSS bacuase they see it as a threat -- go figure.)

These people make me sick. It's stories like this that make me realize why Microsoft is the object of so much hate. It's not because of their products, it's all about how they deal with competition.

I like Active Directory and a few other Microsoft creations, and I even have an MCSE. Hell, Exchange has a good feature-set; if it would just stay up and be easier to manage it'd be a great product too.

What I can't abide is being told that IIS is superior to Apache, and that Windows is more secure than "Linux". They send out these teams of spin-doctors with big bankrolls and try and take over the world using FUD. It's total crap.

When do you see Linus doing this? Steve Jobs? Not very often. There are occasional comments, but nothing like this steady stream of trash that comes out of Redmond. I grow tired of it, and my reasons for disliking the company have never been more clear.

It's not trolling if there is a real point being made other than to incite hostility and debate. My point is clear: Microsoft has a lot to offer by way of products, but they turn people off by being so deceitful when dealing with competition.

If you think a comment along those lines is trolling, I suggest you take another look at the definition.

Why has this been modded Troll? Parent is simply expressing his disgust with Microsofts business tactics, and so am I.

And before you jump at me saying "Well, duh, they are a business, and the whole point of a business is to make money", yes, I know that, and I still find it disgusting. There's a point where unethical behavior actually starts affecting peoples' lives.

Sure, their products suck. But on its own, that wouldn't be a problem, because people would be free to choose the best product for the job. MS would be under the same commercial imperatives as anyone else: make good products, or die.

But their business practices suck too. Because of that, the market isn't free to pick the best products.

They pay people (individuals, dealers, companies, governments) to use their sucky products, by offering discounts and other incentives -- even giving them away if necessary. They pay competitors not to make competing products, by buying them off. They pay masses in marketing to make their products seem less sucky. They pay lawyers to find ways to prevent competitors making better products. They pay dealers and distributors not to bundle competitors' products. They pay lawmakers to prevent competitors being able to compete fairly. They pay training companies to ensure that there's more expertise for their products. They pay their own developers to break competing products in various underhand ways. They pay anything they can to support their products.

And so, ultimately, we all pay...

In short, it's their immoral and illegal business practices which make their dodgy products popular. Prevent those, and their products wouldn't be a problem.

When the sales team is given a quality product to push, they can do it with integrity and morals.

When the sales team is given a garbage product to push, they can not do it with integrity and morals.

The suckage of their business practices is in direct proportion to the suckage of their product offerings.

MS Word has been downhill since word 97. I remember MS Visual Studio 5 which had a Great help system. After 5 they said "screw the help, just use the MSDN CD." Something serious happened in microsoft about the time when the internet was getting big. They totally lost their minds.

I use both Apache and IIS. If you ignore security, stability and some flexibility, IIS has some distinct advantages over Apache.
For starters, it's far more user friendly with a nice mangement GUI. I know there are third-party and distro specific add-ons to manage Apache with a GUI, but that's not a straight Apache installation. Any idiot can setup IIS. It takes a slightly more savvy idiot willing to edit conf files or a 3d party GUI add-on to get Apache running properly.
I find IIS's security simpler

Not exactly. It's easier to run a company with a conscience if it isn't publicly traded and has few owners. My company operates with the intent of integrity being our first goal. If you run a company without having sales people that lie, support personel that don't care an managers that only care about the bottom line, it's pretty easy to be successful without losing your moral compass.

My company isn't taking off as quickly as I'd hoped, but I'd rather fail and leave my conscience in tact and know that I did it the ethical/moral way. Our goal is to build mutual beneficial relationships with our customers, not to sell them shit they don't need.

Sales people push. Partners (what we consider ourselves) work to provide benefits. It's no harder to operate in a good manner than it is in a poor manner.

That being said, my first company failed (too green out of college), my second company is just running at break-even (it does provide some good community services though so it's good karma either way), and my third company is getting close to break-even.

I'd rather work for myself and make $20,000/year than work for (insert global corp here) and make $120,000/year. It's more rewarding and the stress isn't comparable. Most people don't realize that starting your own business is primarily difficult because it requires fiscal discipline and the ability to not be afraid of the umbilical (sp?) cord being cut from receiving a paycheck every 2 weeks or half month. In the end most people are 2 paychecks away from being broke anyway.

Employees are expensive but running a company with integrity is priceless!

Nor is RMS, but lots of free software hackers work for corporations (for instance, good GCC work has been done by Cygnus and now by Red Hat). But it's important that we don't come away thinking that "Linux" is an operating system (it's a kernel) or that Linus Torvalds alone represents all of the work one finds on a GNU/Linux system. The result of many people's participation is found in a modern GNU/Linux system.

But the design of Linux is fundamentally more secure from an engineering perspective. MS made the choice to give their users more freedom with their desktop in the name of "ease of use". Properly administered Windows can be every bit as good as Linux but I think the issue is the person who goes into Best Buy and purchases a computer for home. Are they more secure from a default Windows install or Linux install? I would say Linux. The introduction of a firewall in SP2 improves things immensely however.

That said, Linux Distros aren't really that secure - esp the desktop configurations - once all the typical desktop stuff is installed.

Here, let me give you a basic lesson in "security".

It's all about limiting the avenues of attack.

I run Ubuntu, you cannot crack my machine with any worm because it does not have any ports open to you.

I can put that machine on a DSL connection and read/. all day and never be cracked.

I doubt Mozilla is secure - it's just not been as targetted. Mozilla regularly crashes and exits on me for no apparent reason.

Ah, I see you are from the "security == marketshare" School of "security experts".

You believe that no matter how much care is put into designing an app, security holes will magically appear once enough people start using it.

If you can get a C/C++ program to crash, an attacker can usually get it to run arbitrary code of the attacker's choice.

Nope. That's usually a sign of a "buffer overflow".

Same with OpenOffice. Not very stable even with just normal usage. Microsoft Word hardly crashes in comparison.

Nice. You keep confusing software that crashes with security holes.

Whatever.

However for some reason, the latest fully patched IE seems to crash repeateably on some sites when I drag a link in a browser window and let go within the same window (needs javascript enabled - I only enable javascript for a few sites). I don't recall it doing that before.

And no mention of Browser Helper Objects of how IE runs with unreasonably high access rights.

The Linux kernel has had a fair number of bugs just this year too.

So they're all crap;).

Well, you certainly can't argue with that "logic".

All I can do is to point out that all security issues are not the same.

#1. Remote exploit that gives root/admin rights.

#2. Remote exploit that gives non-root access.

#3. Local exploit that gives root/admin rights....

Way way way down the list is "Exploit that crashes the app". The worst you can get from that is a DoS attack.

But to you, all issues are the same. If FireFox crashes, that's just as bad as the sasser worm on Windows.

Sure, it may be impossible TODAY for someone to crack my Ubuntu desktop... but when enough people use it, an exploit will magically appear and no amount of planning and coding will stop that.

If a program is crashing due to a buffer overflow and someone can get data into the buffer, it may be exploitable. If certain data crashes Mozilla or OpenOffice.org, specially crafted data could exploit the crash bug to inject executable code unless the crash is due to a NULL pointer.

If you want your product to be found safe or secure of what ever, you fund reasearch. Cell phone compinies fund research to show that they are safe, but a recently publish study buy a guy from University of Washington proved otherwise.

Do Microsoft not realise that if they were to fund a project properly, take the criticism constructively and make Windows better as a result of it we would have a lot more respect for them? I don't think it really matters that Windows is insecure, it is the fact that they aren't trying to fix it, just cover it up that I find concerning.

I don't know why, but the general public seems to like crap. Microsoft is just giving them what they want - crap. Look at the most popular fast-food chains, the most popular music, the most popular TV programs, etc

Here's why: The general public likes things that are easy to obtain. Microsoft, popular music, fast food, and TV programs may be mediocre, but you can get them just about anywhere. Better stuff may exist, but if it has to be hunted down via a three hour search, most people aren't going to b

My dad specializes in EMI. Most of his work involves ensuring avionics from different manufacturers don't interact negatively with each other. About 15 years ago I remember him telling me that if you were going to use a cell phone in a car for a prolonged time, you might as well stick your head in a microwave.

Thats why when you wardrive, you have to dangle the antenna out the window or get a magnetic mount. I never keep the antenna in side the car. And when i use the phone in the car, i point the antenna out the window.

About 15 years ago I remember him telling me that if you were going to use a cell phone in a car for a prolonged time, you might as well stick your head in a microwave.

Right, that may help. The waves emitted by the microwave and the cell phone will cancel out each other (negative interference) and so your brain is safe again. Don't forget to equip the other passengers with portable microwaves, too. My only concern is that the cell phone might not work correctly under these circumstances.

All these research by MS funded institutions and researchers, Alexis de Tocqueville etc... It's to predictable.
Do people actually believe anything they're saying?
At least this time they didn't claim Torvalds isn't the father of Linux.

Propaganda is always directed at specific target audience. In the purpose of such institutions as ADTI, there is no reason for common people should believe them. But the politicians, both administratives and lawmakers do, and that does count well.

They don't need to. This stuff is just fodder for metadata that ends up in marketing material for PHBs. You see it all the time; "Seven out of ten independant studies showed that black is white". It doesn't matter that anyone with a clue knows the research is paid for.

"Our own requirement for the methodology was that it had to be very open and transparent."
"However, during their Feb. 16 presentation at the RSA Conference, Thompson and fellow researcher Richard Ford of the Florida Institute of Technology did not mention that one of the subjects of their research was the one funding the project."
Huh. As noted already, this reeks of bias. Even if the results are perfectly accurate (and the FUD surrounding the notion that "Linux" is insecure rather than a specific distro

...and what a bad move. Anyone with half a brain would have looked for independent funding, separate from both sides to put their methodology beyond doubt. Instead they sold their concept to Microsoft, unbelievable naivette.

But the proof of the pudding should be in the eating: apply their methodology. Does it pan out for other Linux distributions/XP upgrades? If the methodology stands, it will be a great service to the debate.

It's just a damn shame the politics of the situation mean that probably won't happen.

all MS has to do to make their OS more secure as part of their 'trustworthy computing' is to announce the service pack and what it fixes one day *after* releasing the said service pack as the study uses a metric called 'days of risk'. can't beat the resulting -ve 'days of risk' unless the competitors did some serious time travelling to issue the patch. sure seems that if you actually make early disclosures it counts against you. some trustworthiness.

...to consider the possibility that if the study was unfavorable to Microsoft's position they would simply have pulled the plug and thrown away the results? Unless you can find fault with the study itself, there is nothing wrong with Microsoft financing studies which show Microsoft in a favorable way as long as the study itelf was legitimate. I realize this may be a difficult concept for many/.'ers to grasp but give it a shot.

We are not questioning their results, our problem is with their methodology.

Their primary metric is "days since a vulnerability is disclosed to when a patch is released".

Microsoft doesn't officially disclose anything (aka "responsible disclosure") until all of their major customers have already been hit, and they have a fix ready.

Open-source software on the other hand has a tendency of being overly paranoid, and will release a security bulletin for every little thing as quickly as possible. This puts them at a natural disadvantage, using the above metric.

According to these "researchers", not letting your customers know that there's a vulnerability is preferred to letting them know as soon as possible. This sort of sounds like a good idea, until you factor in the fact that black hats will know pretty much immediately, word spreads quick.

C'mon now... We found faults with the methodology to begin with. The metrics they're using are completely useless for determining the relative security of an OS- they're using time to release fixes for reported exploits.

Now...

1) Microsoft waits until they actually have a fix or is forced to report/acknowledge an exploit when someone else makes an issue of it.

2) Microsoft doesn't report any other exploits that they know about and doesn't go auditing for potential issues either.

3) The Open Source community as a whole is rather paranoid compared to Microsoft when it comes to overall security so they report anything that might be a potential problem.

Given the above items, that isn't a terribly good metric for determining overall security, nor is determining how secure the OS is by the reported issues. Overall security is a measure of how many issues, how severe, how exploitable, and how well they get fixed. Microsoft consistently flunks in the overall issues (they have more than we do, we just don't find out about them until after the fact...), severity, and fixing arenas.

Combine this all with the facts that Microsoft maintained editorial AND financial control of the entire "study" and it all becomes a farce and worthy of the derision we're all heaping up on it.

#1. They didn't even evaluate the risk of each item they were counting AS IT PERTAINED TO THEIR DEFAUL INSTALL.

#2. They ONLY counted the days until Red Hat had a fix... NOT the days until a fix was publicly available.

So, a local exploit in a.pdf reader that goes unpatched for a year (after being posted on public mailing list) is (by their calculations) WORSE than a remote root attack against the web server that is open on port 80 but which has a patch from Red Hat within a week (and a publicly available patch posted with the vulnerability announcment).

WTF?!?

Or, rather, Microsoft can SIT on a vulnerability notification for YEARS and release the patch the SAME DAY they publicly admit the vulnerability and they will STILL get a better rating than the Apache vulnerability in the previous example.

There was NO research done for this "study". It is pure bullshit. Counting patches is MEANINGLESS when it comes to security.

MS-DOS is a small kernel with a simple single-tasking program loader, limited number of more-or-less independent programs that "do stuff", and very limited communication abilities.

Windows, on the other hand, is a colossal set of interdependent programs, libraries and ghawd-knows-what-else, that can interact with each other in so many ways, in parallel, and at such great speed that nobody can possibly claim to completely understand how it works.

""It was evidence that Microsoft was doing better, and now the evidence is tainted," said Counterpane Internet Security founder Bruce Schneier, a longtime RSA Conference speaker. "The results might be accurate, but now nobody's going to care, because all they'll see is a bias that was undisclosed."

You guys are too skeptical. So MS paid for the study that found them to be safer. That doesn't mean a thing. Seriously, give up the paranoia and trust your fellow human beings for a change.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to draw up plans for a toll both. A nice fellow in a trenchcoat just sold me the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.

When will who learn? Microsoft? They already did. They learned that funding reasearch groups is a great way to portray themselfs as they see fit and at the say time spread FUD about linux and other competitors.

The researchers, from the Florida Institute of Technology and Boston-based Security Innovation Inc., defend their process and conclusions as valid. They say they had "complete editorial control over all research and analysis" involved in the project. Their report details their methods, and they invite other experts to examine and duplicate their work.

So has anyone allready taken this to the test ?
As long as there is no counterevidence (besides the obvious evidence from everyday use of both OS's), why allready pass a judgement? (Ok, this -is- Slashdot, I'm not -too- new here)

Allthough I find it dubious, to say the least, to have MS funding this research ; I still think that they should at least try to reproduce the results , and investigate what might have been left out (on purpose) to skew the outcome.

As long as there is no counterevidence (besides the obvious evidence from everyday use of both OS's), why allready pass a judgement? (Ok, this -is- Slashdot, I'm not -too- new here)

Here's the "counterevidence":

Scenario: You are running a web site on Linux. All ports are blocked by the default firewall except port 80.Is a local exploit in a.pdf reader that is not remotely accessible, but that goes unpatched for a year worse (in your opinion) than...... a remote httpd exploit that gives you root access but which has the patch released with the vulnerability announcement on a public mailing list but you don't deploy it for 1 week while Red Hat packages it and tests it?

By their "methods", the.pdf reader is far, Far, FAR, FAR worse than the httpd one.

Allthough I find it dubious, to say the least, to have MS funding this research ; I still think that they should at least try to reproduce the results , and investigate what might have been left out (on purpose) to skew the outcome.

Read the study. They did NOTHING that just about any 5th grade student couldn't do.

They counted the vulnerabilities (X).

They added together all the days between announcement of vulnerability and Red Hat releasing a patch (Y).

They divided Y by X to find the average time between vulnerability announcement and Red Hat releasing a patch.

They did the same for Win2003.

Then they announced that Win2003 was more secure because it had let time between public announcement and public patch.

That is all they based this "report" on.

Their methodology is fundamentally flawed. You can do the same arithmetic they did and get the same results, but that does not mean that their findings are valid.

The point is that many people who matter will see this paper, they are busy people they will read the headlines and the conclusions, they won't even notice that there is something about funding. These peole are IT directors and the like.

Yes: we geeks say that the report is a joke because of the way that it is funded; learn that the joke is on us since we dismiss this paper as irrelevant when it is opinion forming.

Right there is the flaw in your statement. You're correct in that no one in the field would believe that a Microsoft OS is more secure than a hardened version of Linux. On the same token though, any reputable person in the field would agree that a hardened version of Microsoft's OS is not any less secure than a hardened version of Linux.

Speaking as an academic, it is somewhat disappointing to see this kind of spin besmirch the ivory tower

Keep in mind that we, the people who see the evil trickery, are a flash in the pan of all the people Microsoft would like to spook people from Linux with fud. Several years ago Microsoft tried to use Linux's existance in their legal battles to say Hey, it's not peaches and cream for us with these commy hippie coders spreading free software, so please, DOJ, cut us some slack. Violins.

But at the time they weren't too worried about the long term growing threat, they were worried about the pending case. Now the big picture nightmare is being realized on all fronts and they need to go down in flames shooting off ridiculous attacks/defenses that they paid for because the net result will probably be in the black, at least beyond the slashdotters, of keeping more people from moving to linux than they drive toward linux because those people found out that MS paid for the study and yada yada. Count on that MS reads the likes of Slashdot and give them a little benefit of the doubt -- not with their ethics, but with their business sense. In this case I think the ensuing flood of "when will they learn" posts will be overstated. I should note however that MSFT has had a pretty disappointing [yahoo.com] performance and that the public is catching onto the hole they're in, and not every investor is going to stay on the ship just because Microsoft is selling video games.

But then I think, I am a Debian addict and I am defending MS's business decisions, and then I think I've been up all night perfecting my porn site and I'm beginning to hallucinate. I don't know where I'm going with this... Back to the porn!

Keep in mind that we, the people who see the evil trickery, are a flash in the pan of all the people Microsoft would like to spook people from Linux with fud.

I wouldn't say we're a "flash in the pan". Slashdot readers include 14-year old script kiddies, yes, but also many people like corporate IT managers who make serious purchasing decisions, and consultants who give respected advice. Even if small in terms of percentage, the opinions of Slashdot readers are disproportionately important in the IT worl

In pure science, there is a reasonable probability that biased or faked research will get found out. This is because the rules are constant and experiments are reproducible. The great merit of IT as a field for making money out of biased research is that things do not stay the same. In five years time nobody is likely to do a study of penetration of Linux vs Windows systems in 2004 and decide that one system was superior to another. Apart from the commercial secrecy surrounding hacks, there is no way of collating all the logs.

The conclusion has to be that selling IT snake oil is an even better bet than becoming an aromatherapist or an urban shaman. No-one is likely to be able to prove you wrong, and you can continue to be paid by your vendor of choice secure in the knowledge that most publications will not print anything that upsets their biggest advertisers, and that even if a few minority interests notice the connection between your conclusions and your paycheck, the wider world probably won't notice.

The system will only fall apart if academic institutions get together and pass some suitably tough rules on the ethics of product comparisons - and history suggests that that the first one under the new rules will be a study of the aerodynamics of different breeds of pigs.

I'm a researcher and on the editorial board of an academic journal. The cardinal rule is you disclose your funding or any conflict of interest *every* time and *any* time you make a presentation or write a paper. Such disclosures are essential in allowing others to evaluate the possibility of bias and are accepted practice.

Academia requires funding, and researchers are usually funded. Funding agencies always have a perspective (even when you're funded by the NIH or NSF or other federal agencies). The agreement that the researcher has intellectual control of the research process, data, and the right to publish is key, especially with commercial sponsors (e.g., MS, pharma companies).

These folks may well have had an agreement ensuring them that they could find what they found and freely report it. And if they reported it, others can appraise the quality of their methods. I haven't read the study, so I don't know if the comparison was fair. Did their support from MS include someone sending them specially-configured systems, for example?

But I do know that they should have known better than not to disclose the funding source in their first talk.

It's remarkably stupid of Microsoft to continue to fund studies slamming Linux. The choice between operating systems is not one that people make on the basis of slight opinion. They follow trends, and technological trends are influenced by people who understand the impact of their choices.

Linux has been the choice of the leading edge for several years, it is well-established as the choice for the early adopter, and it's now starting to become a serious option for the mass market.

The mass market listens to the early adopters, the early adopters listen to the pioneers. That's the way it goes with technology, and that's why marketing only helps when products are otherwise equal.

Microsoft should work on the real problem - the low quality of their products, and the real gap between their outdated expensive proprietary software and the commodity alternatives - rather than try to influence the market with propaganda. Unless, of course, they have come to the realisation that they cannot fix the problems.

It will be newsworthy when a study finds that Microsoft has made a better product than the community, and when the study is both independent and accurate.

If Apple can do it, why can't you guys at Microsoft? It's just software... infinitely plastic, and you are so smart, so rich...

Nope. They won't do it. They just don't get it. They will continue to bitch and bluster and bluff until it's too late.

It's a shame. All that talent, all that money, and all they can do is pay people to lie.

"In our analysis we leverage the inherent modularity of Linux to consider both a default configuration and a "minimal install" system that has a smaller attack surface that both
satisfy the web server role."

...compared to...

For the Microsoft-based solution there are many components which are difficult or impossible to completely remove from the operating system and therefore we consider only one configuration, a "complete" installation, and count vulnerabilities for every application included with the server software in our analysis."

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, they're comparing a default install of Linux to a complete (assuming fully-patched?) install of WS2k?

And since they're claiming that this is a "Linux vs. Windows" research paper, the fact that they're looking at using the boxes as web servers makes it seem more like they're comparing Apache/PHP/MySQL to IIS/ASP/SQL...

I'm rather new to the Linux world, but isn't that like looking at the engine of a car, and saying the doors don't work?

Point 1:In a world where there is only one choice of operating system, if you security sucks, you're screwed. Even better would be to have a diversity of operating systems in an organization if cost allows.

Point 2: Linux is not an operating system. It's a kernel that various organizations build operating systems on. I haven't read the report, but if the authors include userland vulnerabilities, they're being completely dishonest. WRT to userland vulnerabilities, you have your choice of Linux based ope

They're talking about "Linux", and its a kernel. RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Slack, Suse... these are OSes!

So, if you get a sloppy distro (wont cite any names to avoid flames) and compare it to Windows, you can say that distro is more insecure than Windows. But you cant say "Linux is more insecure than Windows"!

If they really want to compare Linux to Windows, well... then lets compare the kernels, Linux X NT! Witch one is more secure? Has more bugs? Heh, that's something I'd like to see.

Innovation Inc., 'surprised the audience at a computer-security convention last month with their finding that a version of Microsoft Windows was more secure than a competing Linux operating system' according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Now everyone reading TFA knows better, because you already know about/.. How about the millions of people using Windows that were trying to ceonvert away because of security reasons, who dont know about/.. Until I switched from Windows to Mandrake Linux - I never even heard of this place, much less cared about which was more secure - however now I know better, my wife OTOH, doesn't - nor doesn't care to either I might add.

Stories like this are just like SPAM, the reason they keep happening is because i

NO matter what MS says, no matter how hard they yell or lie or cheat or steal, as long as LINUX is useful and continues to improve people will use it. MS still does not understand that Windows biggest enemy is itself and not LINUX. LINUX is'nt designed to "beat" windows. It's designed according to the needs of it's users. The only reason we are seeing it improve in the desktop arena is because the userbase is changing, becomming more mainstream. So don't worry! Use LINUX (or BSD if that's your fancy) and i

When those "researchers" (I'd rather call them hacks) presented their methology to Microsoft and asked for funding, it was pretty much a no-brainer for MS to do so, as the metrics were clearly in their favour. Take the number of security reports, for example. The number of errors reported does not only depend on the number of errors in the system, it also depends on how available the means for finding these errors are. Compared to the number of people being able to do so witht he Linux sources, fewer people

Computer science like their report does not have peer review. Which is disappointing, because proper computer science research is so much more repeatable than natural science. I'd like to see the ACM take a stand, and aggressively demand that published research either cite a peer review process upon publication, or publish auditable records of the publisher's finances. Of course, anyone can publish anything, and anyone is free to believe it. But computer science is too important not to distinguish accountab

and not owning a PC, I used to really dig this kind of stuff. I still don't own a PC, but my two roommates do, and the more I see these kinds of things on/. the more it reads like sour grapes from the linux community.

When one of my roommates got a Dell recently, I took a look at his XP before connecting to the internet. A few clicks and the firewall was on. A few more clicks and his anti-virus software was up and running. After connecting to our LAN I downloaded Firefox, and for the past month and a half he has had no problems with any security issues on his machine. No, Windows is inherently not as secure as linux, but if you know what you are doing, you will be able to set up your Wintel box to be decently safe and hacker-free.

The downside is, of course, that Microsoft could do a lot more to make Windows more secure out of the box. But Linux (and the Linux community) has a long way to go before the average wal-sumer will feel comfortable using Linux machines, much less knowing how to run them.

Thompson said he and Ford developed the methodology on their own and submitted a proposal to Microsoft last year. He declined to say how much Microsoft paid to fund the research, but he said the company didn't have a say in the methodology.

I'm surprised that this kind of research would get so much attention . . . reading between the lines, the research proposal was written to attract money from Microsoft. This implies an immediate conflict of interest . . . the research proposal and methodology were very possibly skewed in favor of Microsoft from the very beginning to garner Microsoft's favor and money.

This is like writing a research proposal on the effects of smoking to get money from Phillip Morris. Of course such a proposal won't be written is such a way as to build a link between smoking and cancer . . . it would likely be written to imply that the research may refute the link between smoking and cancer. Skew the proposal in favor of the benefactor and one is more likely to get money . . .

The whole process needs to be more transparent . . and all of the facts need to be issued before presenting . . . otherwise this is just irresponsible research.

The stories are stupid. What no one EVER comments on is the research itself, only that it is obviously wrong because M$ funded it. (Of course, that's really just icing on the cake. Any research favoring M$ is automatically wrong, we all know.)

Also, what no one ever mentions when research favors OSS is ideological bias. What's especially interesting about the second thing is that it should be obvious that it exists, because we are neck deep in it here.

What the hell difference is it in a lab environment if my system is more secure than yours if there's no measure of real world elements? Dropping a couple hundred boxes on the net and plotting out the time it takes for their security to be subverted would be a good measure of the OS security.

Some background. I work as an industry analyst for a major technology research firm you've heard of. We were asked to review the methodology and findings of the report prior to its publication---i.e., at the beginning of March.

Things I commented on, among others:

No detailed breakdown of individual vulnerabilities. Which components were affected? How are they distributed?

No indication of which version of Apache being used. 1.x? 2.x? Were the vulnerabilities for both versions counted erroneously?

Prominence given to a dubious metric: "days of risk," which biases scores in favor of Microsoft since Red Hat, Apache et al don't follow the same "responsible" disclosure process

Comparison of a managed runtime script engine (CLR+ASP.NET) with one that isn't (PHP). The correct "apples-to-apples" comparison (that's the authors' phrase, not mine) would be with JRE+JSP (e.g., Tomcat). Gee, no buffer overflow problems with ASP.NET. What a surprise!

In short, the authors' claims that the methodology was "transparent" and "reproducible" are unfounded, since there is no way to inspect the data underlying their conclusions. I predicted they'd be heavily flamed by the open source crowd, and that they ought to make some changes to the report before they went public. They didn't, other than to acknowledge (but not address) a few of the methodological issues we raised.

It's really too bad, since I really liked their emphasis on "role-based" analysis; that is, look at specific "stack" for a particular use case, for example web serving. The methdology paper, in case you haven't read it, is worthwhile reading. But all that good work is sullied since we can't see the data.

The study by Thompson and Ford compared Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 on such factors as the number of reported security vulnerabilities in 2004 and "days of risk" -- the amount of time between the public disclosure of a vulnerability and the availability of a fix.

Windows Server benefited in part from Microsoft's reduction of security vulnerabilities in the latest version of the software -- with 52 reported vulnerabilities for the year, compared with 132 vulnerabilities for the Linux version, according to the report. The researchers also calculated an average of about 31 days of risk for the Windows software in 2004, compared with an average of about 70 days of risk for the Linux version.

Yeah but how many people get to review M$ code and discover new vulnerabilities? Did they account for that in their bug count methodology?

Research which demonstrated the superiority of software *not* written by a greedy corporation was tainted today by the revalation that the researchers themselves were not funded by a greedy corporation.

Acknowledgements
This study and our analysis were funded under a research contract from Microsoft. As part of the agreement, we have complete editorial control over all research and analysis presented in this report. We stand behind our methodology and execution of that methodology to determine objective results that will be useful to customers and security practitioners.

Do they really expect us to buy an excuse that thin? Yes, a report of this type is academically viable, but only if you maintain neutral

Linux vulnerabilities tend to get reported before there's an exploit, even when the "vulnerability" is very minor. Windows vulnerabilities only come to light when there is an exploit, because no one can see the code.

I strongly suspect, but can't prove, that more vulnerabilities are reported for Linux because more eyes are able to see them. I always took it as a matter of faith that problems were patched much faster in Linux than Windows.

If you really take as gospel truth everything you believe about Linux, without demanding proof, why are you worrying about whatever trick makes the Windows numbers look good?

Faith, from Latin fides, trust or loyalty, need not be blind. The authors of this study seemed to be keeping faith with the principles of honest analysis, they worked with universities and stated their biases (one Windows practitioner and the other a Linux expert) up front. I have a Linux bias, so an apparently honest analysis that challenged my presumption was intriguing.

They neglected to mention that they were funded by Microsoft, which betrayed the faith I had put in their honesty. I do not have time to

The numbers are correct, however as they say, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The problems with the study:

1. The researchers were dealing with vendor-supplied patches of RHEL3.0 and Windows 2003 Server only. If a Linux vulnerability was released, and then patched by the author on the same day, but Red Had didn't release an update until 7 days later, this would be counted as a week. (Which may or may not be the correct way to view it - it's an 'apples-to-apples' comparison of a distinct 'apples-to-oranges' problem.)

2. the researchers didn't take into account the severity of the vulnerabilities. A local DOS vulnerability was given the same weight as one that offered remote administrative priveleges. The RHEL vulnerabilities were typically not as severe as the Windows ones.

3. the researchers didn't take into account whether the vulnerabilities were theoretical or not. A vulnerability that was theoretical was given the same weight as one which was proven real. All of the vulnerabilities in Windows were real, while the same is not true of RHEL.

4. The researchers didn't take into account the fact that RHEL has *much* more software included with it than Windows Server 2003. More software == more vulnerabilities.

5. The study dealt with "public disclosures" - security researchers typically work with the vendors, giving them some period of time to produce a fix before releasing the advisory; again, as the "vendor" in OSS is the program author, and not Red Hat, MS has a distinct advantage in "number of days to fix", as they can have a fix ready before the advisory is released, while Red Hat usually cannot. (This ties back into point #1 above.)

5. The study dealt with "public disclosures" - security researchers typically work with the vendors, giving them some period of time to produce a fix before releasing the advisory; again, as the "vendor" in OSS is the program author, and not Red Hat, MS has a distinct advantage in "number of days to fix", as they can have a fix ready before the advisory is released, while Red Hat usually cannot. (This ties back into point #1 above.)

And it is this one that I think should stick in anyone's craw. Clearly